The present invention relates to electronic printing systems, and more specifically to an electronic printing system and method for an adaptable print design studio.
A variety of software applications are available that allow for the creation of several types of printed documents, such as business and greeting cards, stationery and slides. Some applications allow for the printing of such documents on a conventional printer, such as may be found in a home or an office environment.
However, for certain types of printable media that require high quality printing, or if a large volume of documents. is desired to be printed, then the services of a printing facility are required. Often, such facilities contain a variety of specialized printing machinery to facilitate the printing of large volumes of printed products onto a variety of different printable media including plain paper, preprinted paper, business cards, and stationery. In addition, such printing facilities may have the capability to print onto physical objects, such as cloth T-shirts, caps and coffee mugs.
While software application programs, such as those mentioned above, enable the creation of printable documents and local printing of those documents, they lack the mechanisms to allow for the electronic transfer of the documents to the necessary printing facility. With these typical software programs, the transfer of information necessary for the printing of the document is carried out either by storing the document to a transportable storage medium, such as a floppy disk, or by printing the document onto paper by use of a local printer and having the information reentered and formatted in a system at the printing facility. In either case, the transfer of information is both time consuming and burdensome.
Some software applications, such as remote print kiosks, allow for the electronic transfer of documents to a printing facility but are limited in the types of documents that may be created and transmitted. While such programs may enable the creation and transmission of one type of document, such as stationery, they are incapable of the creation and transmission of other types of documents, such as those documents to be placed on mugs, golf balls, T-shirts, etc. In addition, certain print mediums, such as Post-it(copyright) Notes and golf balls, are generally not available for large quantity custom print jobs.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for an electronic printing system in which print orders may be designed and transmitted electronically to a remote or local printer facility so as to be printed remotely or locally in accordance with the order request, regardless of the desired print medium. Further, it is desirable to provide an electronic printing system in which the design tool and remote or local printing facilities are integrated into a seamless environment. It is to these ends that the present invention is directed.
A user of an electronic printing system in accordance with the invention may create custom print designs and provide those custom print designs to a remote or local printer for printing. Upon a user creating a custom print design, the electronic printing system may store the custom design information until an order is placed by the user. Every order may have an order file and one or more associated design files (for example, multiple items in an order). It should be noted that the design files are not limited to computer files but could be objects and other design structures. The design file(s) may describe the initial layout of a print design and may reflect updates to the initial layout based upon the custom design created by a user. Imaging engines resident on the remote servers of the electronic printing system may convert the information in the design file(s) into a graphic file for on-screen representation as well as a xe2x80x9cready-to-printxe2x80x9d output file that may be retrieved electronically by a remote or local printer facility. The order files may contain user information and product data, such as a user""s billing and shipping address, payment information, the type of media type desired and the ink types and print qualities desired. When an order is submitted, it is staged for conversion. Both the design files and the order files may be converted to printer specific files that may be retrieved electronically by a remote printing facility. The user""s order may be carried out by the printing facility and may be sent to the user when completed.